Cycling activists create guerrilla bike lanes to make streets safer

San Francisco activists are taking measures into their own hands using simply traffic cones to make minor but effective improvements to existing infrastructure

Philippe Tremblay August 22, 2016

Photo: Fast Co.Exist

Frustrated by the lack of action by the city, some San Fransisco bike activists are taking measures into their own hands redesigning city infrastructure with the use of simple orange traffic cones to make bike lanes safer. After two cyclists in the city were killed on June 23, Ed Reiskin the director of transportation at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said, “The best bike infrastructure in the world would not have prevented these collisions.” However, some bike and pedestrian advocates disagreed with the notion that street safety changes would not have helped prevent these tragedies.

One incident involved a driver who overtook a car in the wrong lane, striking and killing a cyclist legally riding in the other direction. Just hours later, another driver ran a red light and killed a 26-year-old woman.

“I think many of us have recognized as pedestrians and bikers that the city is not doing very much, and when they do something, they do it in these very half-measured ways,” one of the guerrilla bike activists, who wanted to be anonymous told Fast Co.Exist. “So they put in some of these plastic posts and they paint the asphalt, and they say, ‘Hey, we’ve made these improvements,’ and they move on to something else.”

Interventions by the activists include putting up construction cones on newly painted bike lanes that were being ignored by drivers forcing them to immediately start staying in their designated lane.

“Orange cones are really a great prototyping tool,” the anonymous activist said. “They put something on the ground that’s visible. Cars really slow down around orange cones—it’s really a remarkable feat of psychology.”

The guerilla tactics were inspired by activists in New York City and elsewhere who were using planters and cones to effectively make cycling lanes safer.

“It’s not that we want the police to write tickets for people driving down bike lanes,” the activist continued. “We want it so people can’t possibly drive down bike lanes, or can’t possibly zoom around corners and cut off pedestrians—because it’s physically impossible. I want the city to take it much more seriously.”

Apart from being an immediate but temporary solution to making bike lanes safer, the measures and meant to show the city how simple it can be to make effective adjustments. A more permanent solution could be as easy as adding bollards or planters along existing bike lanes.

“We’d love the city government to pick this up from us,” the activist said. “We’re doing this as a showcase of how cheap and easy this is to do, and we’re wondering why in the world the city isn’t following our lead.”